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IT-Business Alignment: It Must Include Performance

SAN FRANCISCO, CA--(Marketwire - October 29, 2007) - According to numerous sources including a
recent article in CIO Insight
(http://www.cioinsight.com/slideshow/0,1206,1=&s=&a=217341,00.asp?kc=CIOMIN
EPNL101807), a chief concern for CIOs is the alignment of the IT and
business sectors of a company. It can and certainly does happen that IT,
having to put out fires and implement the latest in technologies while
keeping the entire system up and performing smoothly, gets caught up in
their own priorities and crises. Meanwhile, the business side might be
suffering from outdated CRM solution or the lack of proper policy on
database use. Such a disparity affects both sides; by the time IT catches
up with such problems, unusual solutions will have entered in such as data
for thousands of clients being entered in incorrect database fields. IT
will have to spend thousands of hours straightening it out, while the
company will be losing time searching in vain for misplaced customer
information.

Hence, it greatly benefits CIOs to stay current with business plans,
programs, and day-to-day operations -- if for no other reason than to
prevent cumbersome problems from unexpectedly rising up and draining
already-overtaxed IT resources. But such coordination can obviously be far
more beneficial; with IT and business working in tandem toward common
goals, those goals are reached with greater ease meaning an expanding
profit margin to everyone's benefit.

System performance is obviously part of such alignment. System speed or the
lack thereof affects every aspect of an enterprise, but most importantly
affects direct relations with -- and delivery to -- clients. Unfortunately,
many IT departments only address performance issues when they become
noticeable and users are complaining. But by that time, that department or
perhaps even the entire enterprise has been suffering less-noticeable
performance decreases for some time and production has been impacted over
the longer term.

One crucial aspect of maintaining system performance is the addressing of
file fragmentation. The splitting of files into multiple pieces (fragments)
has for years been the operating system solution for full utilization of
disk space. This "solution" has required the contribution of an entire
industry -- defragmentation software -- to counter fragmentation's negative
affect on performance. In the last few years, this has meant
defragmentation solutions that can be scheduled to run when the least
number of users are accessing a system and when they can provide the most
benefit.

But in aligning IT and business activities, it is obviously best to provide
consistent performance both from IT personnel and the system itself. With
scheduled defragmentation, overworked IT personnel must analyze the site to
isolate the busiest volumes, then schedule defragmentation on them; in
today's frantic datacenter environments, this task can only be a burden.
But system performance is also impacted; testing has shown that scheduled
defragmentation leaves performance-impacting fragmentation behind in
between runs, and in some cases isn't defragmenting at all.

In moving toward the ideal alignment of IT and business operations,
consistent system performance and reliability can only be provided through
a fully automatic defragmentation solution, one which requires no
scheduling and one which will run whenever idle system resources are
available. Fortunately, such solutions are now appearing on the market --
making for one more point of alignment for enterprises everywhere.